This is a question I often get asked. The truthful answer is, yes, they do. The perhaps surprising answer, is for that, I am thankful.

Life can get crazy around here with four little people. And if I'm not very careful, days can go by in the blink of an eye. In the hustle of getting the kindergartener and preschooler to and from school, its easy to forget that the 2 year old's need to stop and listen to the birds or watch a ladybug on the sidewalk. Its easy to rush through all the seemingly mundane tasks of their care-taking, such as diaper changes, or the feeding(and cleaning up) of yet another meal, and forget that its in each of these very tasks that I find my meaning as a mama.

Because their diapers are not disposable, and because they require my care, they beg my attention. In the time and effort that goes into caring for the diapers, I am reminded to slow down, be present and be intentional in the way that I care for my family.

We are encouraged everywhere we look to find fast and easy and now and disposable. But I was finding that sometimes in the name of convenience, real was getting sacrificed. Real nutrition, for empty microwaveable calories. Real stories on laps, for tv shows. Real moments together of conversation or staring out car windows with very real thoughts that move and change with the passing landscapes, for mindless movies in the car. Real games thought up with real friends for video games. Real moments stolen by manufactured ones. And who says parenthood is meant to be convenient? I contend that this is where most people get a little off track. We're meant to give of our self for their good. It grows us and stretches us and in the end, strengthens us. So yes, real may take longer. But its in the extra time that I am bettered.

There is honor in loving your dear ones well, in being intentional in your living. There is something to the ritual of hanging diapers outside in the bright sunshine that makes cloth diapering my little ones enjoyable. It physically connects me to the present day. It brings my attention to the clouds, and an awareness of the weather, and appreciation of sunshine. The simple pleasures of cloth diapers are found in all the details: The careful attention to the diapers; carrying them out to hang in the sunshine; seeing them there, swaying in the wind; the sweet smell of nothingness when you pull them down at the end of the day; the way they look when they're stuffed and stacked and awaiting your little one; the way they look on your baby or toddler. The simple pleasure of cloth diapers does something to me. It slows me down, and makes me aware and gives me a smile.

With my first, every toe was kissed and roll squeezed for each and every diaper change. I had the luxury of being fully present during each of his moments. But now there are four people, and four times the needs and four times the moments. Its too easy for me to get lost in my agenda and hurry through a diaper change. Its too easy to forget that these little ones need to be tickled and kissed and delighted in with each diaper change. No part of them should be rushed or hurried past. Because, its all so fleeting. And all too soon those plump baby legs will give way to skinny little knobby knees.

All of this being said, I'm not some super mom that can knead the dough for our daily homemade bread, while collecting all of our produce from our outside garden, who makes her own everything with a baby on each hip all the while playing hide and seek with my older two. I can't do it all. No one can. I enjoy efficiency and shortcuts with the best of them. I'm just picky about which convinces I use. Are there some boxed foods in my pantry? You bet. Store bought bread on my counter? Yup. Do I make my own soap? No way. How about toiletries? Huh? Do I make my own wet wipes? No, I find water and baby washcloths work perfectly.

For me, its a simple cost/benefit analysis. If the costs outweigh the benefits, its not for me. But I do try to make cloth diapering work for us, not against us. Otherwise, whats the point? I wash diapers every other day. That's the perfect amount for me. This way, I'm not washing diapers everyday, on top of my daily load of clothes. But yet, I'm not stretched too thin and I still have a few to spare in the event that I can't get to the diapers on the second day. In other words, I have a little wiggle room. If I washed every 3 days, I would be out of luck if something came between me and my diaper washing.

I also stay inventive with my diaper drying routine. I don't have a clothesline. Boo. But, I still wanted my diapers to dry in the sun. I started with a rickety drying rack. Hated it and got rid of it. Then I bought line and hooks from a home improvement store and hung the line between my deck railings. This works well, but what about those days when the clouds are iffy or its below freezing outside? This is when I began hanging my diapers on children's pant hangers. Its a perfect fit. On suspect weather days, I can hang them outside on the backs of our patio furniture. This way, if the weather turns, it takes me seconds to scoop them up and move them to the rack above my washer, or onto my shower curtain rod…because rain soaked diapers aren't going to help my cause, or make me smile.

Do you ever notice that when you're sweating in the grocery store whilst chasing a three year old down the isle or catching what your baby has pulled off the shelf (again) or explaining to your 5 year old why you will not buy him the purple flaked cereal that older people passing by will stop and deeply smile at you and perhaps implore you to enjoy it because it goes fast? They know something we can't see from the forest. In the rush of life, its easy to miss the moments.

I hope this encourages you and your choice to cloth diaper. Be intentional in the way you live. And, go easy on yourself for the things you can't get to. They will still be there when you're ready. And, if cloth diapers slow you down a bit, good for you. We can all afford to slow down a little.

I am a SAHM of 4 dirty little boys! They are my world, but some days "WOW" is the only description of the day! There are days that a shower isnt happening let alone doing a load of wash, but as I sit and listen to the dirty little buggers while I write this, it makes me laugh.

Live, Love, and Laugh- a great motto for parenting. I teach my boys to live, I teach them to love, and I teach my boys to laugh. In order to teach them to live we, as parents, need to experience life. Sometimes as trivial as trying a new recipe to as important as buying a house. To teach them to love, we need to love them as much as they deserve. To teach them to laugh we need to bond with them.

We teach our children with everything we do. Lead by example. That example could be helping a friend or helping future generations. We are destroying our world with all of our waste. That is not a lesson I want to teach my boys. I never really gave it much thought until I started researching Cloth diapering. That was when the statistics became a little more real. It was appalling, but I thought I could not afford to cloth diaper. But low and behold......

I was able to jump into the world of cloth in July of 2009. I wanted to use cloth back when #4 was born, but the start cost was so overwhelming ($400 for 1 child.) I had an 18 month old and a newborn. So, 2 times $400= Not gonna happen.

July 2009, I was at a church flea market. #4 was in a mei tai on my back and a mama approached me to tell me how beautiful the mei tai was. We got talking and cloth diapers came up.

Other mama (OM), " Do you use cloth?"
me,"no, the start up was to expensive."
OM," really? oh my goodness, it is not to expensive, if you do it right."
me, " Maybe, when I have one in diapers I could do it and my husband is out of work right now."
OM," Well, you are the perfect mama for this. Follow me."

She shows me a bin of 40 flats, 10 medium covers, and 10 XLarge covers. OMG!!!! What a stash!!! Perfection! The clouds parted, a light shone down, and I heard "aaaaaaa." Then she hits me with the price. Ready????? $10 for all!!!! Of course I dont have my pocketbook or any cash in my pocket. I find my husband and ask for the money. I go back and I am now officially a cloth diapering mom!!! I am am sooooo stoked at this point. I research a wash routine, I research how to fold them, and I am researching everything I can about cloth. I rinse, wash, and rinse. Then I hang them out, and as soon as I have 2 that are almost dry I slap them on Frick and Frack! I can't explain my excitement, but it excited me almost as much as when I got a positive pregnancy test. lol

While doing my research I found some awesome CD sites (shopping, trading, & selling.) It was like a whole new world for me. I see all my options. For about a month I used the flats and covers. It was great!! My husband was not thrilled, well actually he hated it. He refused to change a single diaper. Well, our budget discussion was a little different the next month. We had an additional $150. Whoooo hoooo! My husband was fully on board. He was very willing to learn how to change "those nasty things."

Then I started browsing the for sale boards. I won a For sale for shipping WAHM diaper; it definitely changed my thoughts on sticking with flats. I started building a real stash. In 2 weeks I had 50 diapers. No money saved that month.

I had my boys in cloth! I was very excited. I do have to say the poopy diapers were overwhelming. All the information was overwhelming. The novelity wore off. I thought maybe it is easier to go back to sposies, but I could never go back. Way to many people made comments like, " You'll never follow thru", "You will be back in disposables in a month" , and (my favorite, blech) "Before you know it diapers will pile up and the boys will be wearing dish towels." So, I needed to keep pressing through. 4-6 poopy diapers a day was killing me. But then the baby stopped nursing and he slowed to 2 poops and my toddler was a daily pooper, so that was better! Phew! 1 hurdle jumped. I still had to do diapers daily only because I was anal about them sitting. Then within 3 months it was just a part of life. I was no longer overwhelmed, no longer bothered by rinsing poopy diapers, and got the perfect wash routine for me. I felt I was doing them all along. I was happy , my husband was happy, and the boys booties were happy!

Cloth Diapering has been a successful venture for us for almost 2 years. I am in no way saying it has been a walk in the park, but anything new can be a challenge.

Since July of 2010, I've been surprising people around me left and right.

My husband and I announced we were pregnant--surprise!
We decided to have an un-medicated birth--surprise!
We weren't going to find out the sex of the baby--surprises all around!!
I was ONLY going to be a breastfeeding mom, no supplementing--surprise!
We are going to cloth diaper--SURPRISE!!!

Friends and family were caught off guard, and understandably so. Those decisions aren’t really mainstream for American parents. Because even though many couples start out with similar intentions, for some reason or another, it doesn't always work out.

For our little family, we’ve thankfully succeeded in them all.

Pregnancy--complete.
Very intense un-medicated birth--success.
Our 'little bear' turned out to be a girl--Gianna Clare.
Breastfeeding is still in progress--no supplementing needed!
Cloth diapering?? Check.

I thought about many parenting decisions before we were pregnant, but I never really considered diaper options until after the test turned positive. Like a lot of people, my husband and I worried how we were going to pay for everything. We formed a budget and figured out what things we NEEDED and what things we could do without. Turns out, you don't actually need a dresser for your baby because her tiny clothes can be crammed into some closet cubbies or on hangers. One thing you do need? Diapers.

My mom cloth diapered me, and my husband was cloth diapered by my motherin- law. No one else in our family approved, because those were the days ruled by plastic pant leaks, wet pails, diaper pin pricks, and the toilet swirl/dunk. I remembered my mom dealing with my sister's yucky cloth diapers when I was little—in fact, if I think hard enough, I can still smell the disgusting odor that permeated our bathroom. I just knew that wasn't the way I wanted to go. I have a type A personality, and germs/messes aren't my thing.

Then I read up on the chemicals in disposables--Sodium Polyacrylate, TBT, VOC, etc.
And I read about how many diapers go into landfills per year--27.4 billion.
And how long they stay there--450 years.
And I read about how many disposables our little bear would go through—6000.
And the pretty pennies thousands of dollars it would cost us--$1700.

I'm not an extremely green person, but I'm becoming more and more crunchy as I get older. I decided then and there that cloth diapers would save us money (yay!) and help the environment (bonus yay!). Now all I needed to do was convince my husband.

I am so glad the internet showed me all the ways that the cloth diaper world had changed. I devoured all the information I could find about 'modern' cloth diapering. Thank God for kellyscloset.com. Flats, prefolds, fitted, pockets, all-in-ones, hybrids, wool, fleece, hemp, cotton, OMG. I spent an entire day reading about all my options. I actually ended up spending several days deciphering all the information I had found. I read reviews, I price compared. I perused all the cool prints and patterns. I figured out which accessories I wanted.

What I had not done, yet, was inform my husband we would be cloth diapering. I knew I needed too, I was just nervous. I mean, who wants to change a diaper, let alone deal with a yucky wet mess that you don't just throw away.

So I bit the bullet, prepared a portfolio of all my new knowledge, and shared with my husband why we should cloth diaper. After showing him all the easy-to-use styles, and how good it was for the environment, I hit him with the SURE THING. "It will save us almost $2000, for just one baby, and they can be used for other kids too!"

Other people weren't as easy to convince. I added lots of cloth diaper options to my registry, but I think everyone was afraid to buy them. They didn't seem too confident that I would actually go through with cloth diapering. “Disposables are just so much easier! “One of my aunts informed me that there were just be some messes that I wouldn't want to wash, I would end up just throwing the whole diaper out. Oh, I do like a challenge! And I'm proud to say we've had our fair share of absolutely disgusting diapers, but not one that couldn't be washed!

Bio: Kaylene Brown loves fruit, baking, fitness, and cool fall days. She is a kinda-crunchy, old-fashioned SAHM who blogs about all kinds of things at her blog, Letters from Momma

When planning our vacation to Florida, the most difficult decision for me was whether or not to cloth diaper our 8 month old twins during the trip. We would be flying with two car seats, a booster seat, a play yard, and a double stroller in addition to our suitcases. Would we have enough room to pack cloth diapers, too?

I decided to try it, but we would have to do a couple things differently. I knew we would have access to a washer and dryer, but not a diaper sprayer; so I bought disposable wipes and flushable liners. I wanted to make cleanup easy since we were on vacation. We packed our suitcases minimally with the intention of doing clothing laundry once during the trip. Diaper laundry would have to be done twice with the stash I was bringing. We had hybrid diapers for daytime use and pocket diapers for nighttime. I had some samples of diaper detergent that were the perfect size for traveling. I was able to fit everything for the four of us into two standard sized suitcases.

My husband and I each packed a diaper bag in case we were seated apart on the plane. Each contained a changing pad, wipes, a wet bag, and three cloth diapers with liners: one for when we arrived at the airport, one in case we needed it during the flight, and one for when we arrived. We made sure to pack plenty of snacks and toys for the flight, plus my daughter’s tag blanket (she naps much, much easier when she has it). I read somewhere that babies are prone to having blowouts during flights, so we packed a spare outfit for each kid – turns out we didn’t need them because cloth diapers don’t have blowouts.

Now that the trip is over and we are home safe and sound, I can tell you that I made the right decision. Cloth diapering was super easy to do on vacation. It turned out that there was a clothing line, so we were able to line dry our diapers and wet bags. When we went to the beach and the pool, we used diaper covers without inserts instead of buying swim diapers. I’m very pleased with how the flushable liners worked, and I will use them again for future trips. There were only a couple of times that the liner didn’t catch it all, and I had to use wipes to clean off the diaper.

We are already planning our next family adventure, which will be a weekend of camping. I plan to cloth diaper the kids during this trip, too. Since I know there will be no washer available, I’m off to research ideas on how to wash diapers by hand at the campsite.

Happy traveling!

Christine Duffy - When she’s not busy being a mom to her twins, Michael and Malia, Christine enjoys experimenting with making things from scratch. So far, she has successfully made wine, beer, cheese, deodorant, detergent, and other cleaning supplies.

From the moment I found out I was expecting my first child, I knew I wanted to cloth diaper. Well, easier said than done. There are so many options out there. I spent 9 months researching everything about cloth diapers, and I still didn’t know how was I supposed to choose what was best for my son. Thankfully, I had Closet and their reviews to help me on my adventure.

First things first, all diapers fit babies differently, so this is my story about my 7 pounds 11 ounces, 19 inch long son.

Our first try was lil’ joeys by Rumparooz. I read many reviews of how amazing they were. I knew this would be the diapers for us! They have adorable prints and were so small. I was only six pounds at birth, so I felt I was destined to have small children. Well, my son wasn’t very small and unfortunately, the fit was just not right on our son. They leaked every single time we put them on. They aim for smaller babies and our son had chunky thighs and a thin waist. These are great diapers, but only if you have a really small baby. If only we could predict that!!

Next, we tried the Thirsties xs cover with the Kissaluvs size 0 fitted. This worked very well for us. In fact, this was my husband’s favorite. It never leaked, dried quickly, and kept my babies bum very dry. I would recommend this for any average sized baby. This diaper combo worked for my son until he was 10 weeks old. Sadly, he outgrew them and we moved onto one size diapers. These diapers would probably fit up to 3 months on most babies!

In addition, we used the bumGenius XS. This was the favorite for grandparents, a very easy AIO. We had the hook and loop, so it was “just like a disposable” for those use to it. This was my least favorite for many reasons. First, they are pretty expensive for a sized diaper. Second, they also take a really, really long time to dry. However, the biggest downfall was that these diapers only fit my son for 3 weeks. For how much they cost, I do not feel like I got my money’s worth.

Last, and my favorite, is the Happy Heinys Mini. I liked this diaper the most because it had the hook and loop closure which made customizing the fit of the diaper easy. Most importantly, it had a pocket. I liked that I could stuff this as needed. This was not much of an issue for my son in his first few weeks, but as he grew, this diaper fit him the longest, so it was nice that I could put bamboo, microfiber, or hemp in it. They also dry very fast! In fact, we were still using this diaper at 12 weeks, and I can’t say that for the other “newborn” diapers.

Now, you find the right type of diaper, but how many do you need? Oh boy! I had 3 Thirsties covers, 10 Kissaluvs size 0, 5 bumGenius xs, 4 Happy Heinys mini, and 6 lil’ joeys. Of course, we didn’t use our lil’ joeys, so we had about 20 in our rotation. I washed every 1 ½ days. I had enough diaper to wash in a day and have a few to spare for the next rotation. Boy do newborns go through diapers quickly!

All in all, I would say my favorite diaper on my newborn was the Happy Heinys Mini. It fit my son the longest, and fit him well at the beginning (even with the cord), so we have really gotten our money’s worth.

The best advice I can give is to choose a variety to try and see what works for you. Unfortunately, ever baby is different. I know, not what you want to hear, but sadly it is true. The best part is you can re-sale any diaper that doesn’t work for you and buy the ones you love!